Welcome to the home for real-time coverage of markets brought to you by Reuters reporters. You can share your thoughts with us at markets.research@thomsonreuters.com A CINEWORLD SHOW AT THE OPEN (0836 GMT) Quite a dramatic move on Cineworld shares which dropped a whopping 37% shortly after the opening bell. "Could be ugly for Cineworld on the open", CMC analyst Michael Hewson commented earlier on twitter as news emerged that Cineworld was ruled by a Canadian court to pay C$1.23 billion to rival Cineplex as damages for scrapping a takeover deal. (It will appeal) Ugly it was indeed. There"s more action still among UK midcaps -- electricals retailer Currys is down about 7% after it cautioned that consumer demand has softened in the run-up to Christmas. Among British blue chips, DCC jumped 5.5% after announcing the acquisition of Almo Corporation and JP Morgan raised its target price on the stock. While DCC was the biggest gainer across the pan-European STOXX 600, Belgium"s Colruyt was the biggest loser, down close to 10% after publishing its results. While there"s a lot of action among individual stocks, the general mood is surprisingly upbeat with the STOXX 600 up 0.5%; barely an hour earlier, futures had been in the red. The mood has also improved on Wall Street, which at the moment seems set to open in positive territory. Perhaps as a sign that traders are not putting all their money on a hawkish Fed later today, the tech sector, which typically suffers when interest rates move up, is the best performing this morning with a 1.6% rise. Miners, oil and gas, often seen as good inflation hedges, are losing about 0.5%. (Julien Ponthus) ***** OKAY FED, SHOW US YOUR HAND (0758 GMT) A fortnight ago, Federal Reserve chief Jerome Powell offered a glimpse of what was to come at the December Fed meeting by suggesting a tapering of asset purchases would be speeded up. Now it"s time for Powell to reveal his full hand. With inflation running at almost four-decade highs, the Fed is expected to end its two-day meeting on Wednesday by accelerating its taper of asset purchases from the current $15 billion monthly pace. Some reckon that pace will be doubled. That would mean the taper could possibly end earlier, which in turn would mean interest rates start rising sooner than anticipated. The spotlight falls now on the Fed"s "dot plot" of where policymakers see rates headed. A minimum of two hikes in the dots for next year seems a given. Anything more than that would be considered a hawkish surprise, and would possibly upend the calm in world markets, just before Thursday"s central bank meetings in the euro area, Britain, Switzerland and Turkey. For the Bank of England at least, the dilemma is heating up -- money market have virtually priced out a rate hike this week after the Omicron outbreak, yet Tuesday"s jobs data and inflation figures just out will make for uncomfortable reading for the bank, with the November price print at a 10-year high of 5.1%. read more The Fed"s policy statement and updated economic projections are out at 1900 GMT, followed by a news conference 30 minutes later. With that on the horizon, stock markets are virtually flat. European and U.S. equity futures are little moved, while the dollar is holding firm . U.S. 10-year Treasury yields are at 1.43%, well below a recent 1.693% top. The yield curve continued its flattening trend, as investors wager an earlier start to Fed tightening will lead to slower inflation in the long run. Key developments that should provide more direction to markets on Wednesday: - China"s factories speed up but new COVID pain hits retailers read more - Under pressure": China property market hit by more headwinds read more - Japan admits overstating some government economic data for years read more - U.S. Congress approved raising government debt limit to about $31.4 trillion - U.S. retail sales/inventories data out later - Emerging markets: Central bank meeting in Croatia (Dhara Ranasinghe) ***** ON THE BACKFOOT WAITING FOR THE FED (0719 GMT) European stock markets are set to open in negative territory this morning with futures for the main benchmarks trading down between 0.1% and 0.4%. Of course, all eyes are on the Fed which is expected to announce that it is speeding its tapering plans and set to hike interest rates next year to keep inflation in check. Talking about inflation, data just showed British consumer price inflation jumped to an annual rate of 5.1% in November, its highest since September 2011. This means the pressure for the BoE to act tomorrow despite the spread of the Omicron variant will be high. Anyhow, in the meantime investors are keeping a cautious positioning and in Asia, MSCI"s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan eased 0.6%. Prudence is also palpable for the U.S. market with Wall Street futures trading just slightly in the red. There are also a few interesting corporate developments in Europe this morning: - Veolia and Suez gain EU green light for $14.7 bln deal read more - Generali to return up to 6.1 bln euros to investors under new plan read more - Inditex 9-Month net profit more than triples to 2.5 billion euros read more (Julien Ponthus) ***** Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.